‘Real Housewives of New York’: Is Heather ghetto or great?

After this week's episode of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” I'm still not sure I entirely understand Sonja's “caburlesque” concept, except that it involves wearing deeply unflattering lingerie, yakking mindlessly, and possibly boring the snot out of friends who have (apparently) paid for tickets in order to see the narcissistic mess you've created on stage. Still, it gave the ladies something to do in the Hamptons, so kudos, Sonja!

I hate to admit that I was probably thinking a lot of the things Amanda was saying during the performance, though really, she may have wanted to save them for a time when she wasn't drinking Sonja's “cheap” liquor. Oh, who's Amanda? Who knows! She's a friend of Aviva's and is, apparently, an image consultant. As Kristen politely points out, she doesn't look like an image consultant, unless the image one wants to project is, shall we say, a bit plastic. When Aviva tries to flirt with Harry, she either isn't all that interested or has Botoxed her forehead so extensively she can no longer move it. A come-hither glance is pretty hard to summon when your face is frozen. Actually, what am I saying. Amanda's perfect for this show!

While it seems that everyone is having fun in the sun in the Hamptons (A surfing lesson! A barbeque at LuAnn's! Dinners and parties and shopping, oh my!), the reality is that the women packed their old, New York resentments in with their bikinis so that it was about as more of a working vacation than anything else. This is what, week three of Carole and Aviva's bitter battle over who's the real writer? Time to turn the page, ladies.

Carole does try to do her level best to avoid Aviva at every turn, and Heather is more than happy to help. Sonja sneakily has Carole and Aviva sit together at her show? Not on Heather's watch! Carole wants to slip away to a dark corner, far from Aviva? Heather will hold her hand (and if not Heather, her trainer). It's all going pretty well until LuAnn's shindig. 

Carole does take a moment to apologize to LuAnn for hurting her feelings in the past, which Aviva suspects is just strategy (eh, she might have a point), but ultimately these women can't have too many happy moments occur in an evening without stirring the pot. Sonja manages to get Aviva all fired up about Carole's lack of support, and in the retelling by Aviva it sounds like Carole might be a WWE member or a part of Tony Soprano's crew. She slapped Aviva! She called her a bad mother and ugly and stupid and stuff! She ripped off Aviva's leg and beat her with it! That Carole is a monster!

As Aviva is getting all fired up (and after she admits she “wrote” her book “with a lot of help,” so yeah, she had a ghostwriter), Carole and Heather join the fun. Carole is no shrinking violet, but man, Heather is nothing if not fierce when it comes to defending a friend. The volume gets so loud, not only can we not hear a word that's being said (Aviva and Heather effectively drown one another out) but LuAnn loses all control of the party. She can't even get anyone interested in dessert, which you know none of these women eat, but they might want to look at it at least.

Amanda, who has a truly distorted view of her own importance, decides to try to shut Heather down in a semi-drunken way, which Heather does not appreciate. Amanda stomps out of the room, threatening to “deck” Heather. That's simply not done by sane people, as I think Heather would love to get into a fistfight as long as she could claim self-defense. Maybe even if she couldn't. Look, Heather is tough. She used to hang with rappers, people! Next week, expect blood. Or punching. Or hair pulling. It could be exciting!

Do you think Heather and Amanda should have gotten involved? What did you think of Sonja's caburlesque? Do you think Aviva and Carole need to let it go?

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